Archive for September, 2009

According to calculations, most of the way to the very edge of the universe could be traveled in a human lifetime.

All you need is a rocket capable of accelerating at 9 metres per second per second. You would be traveling at speeds close to the speed of light, so time would be slower for you due to relativity.

Because the universe is expanding, and because that expansion is accelerating, the expansion horizon could never be reached, but you could get 99 percent of the way in 50 years.

Or, as it turns out, in even less time:

[Juliana Kwan at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia] and her colleagues have found the trip could take even less time.

Based on the latest cosmological values for dark energy and other parameters, they showed an astronaut could make the journey in only 30 years.

But their calculations also suggest that returning home presents its own challenges. Even slight uncertainties in the strength of dark energy or the total density of matter in the universe could cause a spacecraft to miss Earth by millions of light years.

Beginning the deceleration just a second too late could cause you to overshoot the Milky Way, Kwan says. “You would effectively be lost in space.” [New Scientist]

Not that it matters. Even if you made it back, 70 billion years would have passed on Earth and nothing you remember would remain- even the Sun would be gone.

The ancient Mayans may have used their pyramids as as a great musical instrument to play for the gods.

If you were to sit on the steps of Mexico’s El Castillo in Chichen Itza, you would notice a sound like raindrops hitting water when other visitors climbed the pyramid’s stairs.

The same phenomenon can be found at the Moon Pyramid at Teotihuacan in central Mexico, suggesting that at least some of the Mayan pyramids were expressly built to be an instrument.

El Castillo is widely believed to have been devoted to the feathered serpent god Kukulcan, but Cruz thinks it may also have been a temple to the rain god Chaac. Indeed, a mask of Chaac is found at the top of El Castillo and also in the Moon Pyramid.

“The Mexican pyramids, with some imagination, can be considered musical instruments dating back to the Mayan civilisation,” says [Jorge Cruz of the Professional School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in Mexico City], although he adds that there is no direct evidence that the Mayans actually played them. [New Scientist]

It’s an interesting idea, but as of yet it’s still a largely unsubstantiated one. And as Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Boston University, Massachusetts, points out, the supposed musical pyramids goes unmentioned in Mayan texts.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that pet-lovers in Britain has a new favorite, and it’s this Spider-Man look-alike:

That’s the Mwanza Flat-headed Rock Agama which can be found all-over the Sub-Saharan Africa. The Daily Telegraph writes:

Agamas like the Spider-Lizard, as it has become known make good pets, as they become tame and docile if handled regularly. However, they require specialist equipment in the UK to maintain their temperature.

It can grow up to a foot long, and the squeamish may find it a problem to feed – a balanced diet for an agama includes locusts, crickets, mealworms and waxworms.

In northeastern China, the fossil of a new dinosaur, named Raptorex kriegsteini that lived 125 million years ago has been uncovered.

The Raptorex had an oversized head with powerful jaws for biting, long legs for running and tiny arms that did nothing – it was basically an earlier version of Tyrannosaurus rex, who lived 35 million years later.

The Raptorex, however, was about the size of a human.

The scientists are sure that the new mini tyrant is not just a juvenile. Bones in animals tend to fuse in sequence, providing a key to an animal’s maturity level.

Raptorex’s pelvic girdle was completely fused and its scapula and shoulder blade were nearly so, indicating that it was an adolescent at the end of its growth. [Wired]

The stunted arms of T. rex has previously been thought by many to have evolved has a consequence of T. rex being so big. But the Raptorex shows that the basic body plan of T. rex was already present in its earlier ancestors – it just got bigger.

But why the big head and small arms? Paleontologist Paul C. Serano tells the New York Times:

Raptorex, like T. rex, would have killed animals with its teeth and jaws. The forelimbs would not have been the primary means for attacking prey.

In fact, Dr. Sereno said, the forelimbs would have gotten smaller as the head got larger. “This is an agile, fast-running animal,” he said.

“By adding a lot of weight at the top, something has to give way. What gave way was the forelimb.”